From owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Wed Nov 9 02:43:17 2011 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [IPv6:2001:4f8:fff6::34]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 4E574106566B for ; Wed, 9 Nov 2011 02:43:17 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from DStaal@usa.net) Received: from mail.magehandbook.com (173-8-4-45-WashingtonDC.hfc.comcastbusiness.net [173.8.4.45]) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 237848FC19 for ; Wed, 9 Nov 2011 02:43:16 +0000 (UTC) Received: from [192.168.1.50] (Mac-Pro.magehandbook.com [192.168.1.50]) by mail.magehandbook.com (Postfix) with ESMTP id 4A35D72A; Tue, 8 Nov 2011 21:27:29 -0500 (EST) Date: Tue, 08 Nov 2011 21:27:16 -0400 From: Daniel Staal To: "Conrad J. Sabatier" Message-ID: <55A813557C42D92761C1B590@mac-pro.magehandbook.com> In-Reply-To: <20111108195804.6dfa47c8@cox.net> References: <20111108184236.3a78ebf6@cox.net> <201111090117.pA91HRDo065662@mail.r-bonomi.com> <20111108195804.6dfa47c8@cox.net> X-Mailer: Mulberry/4.0.8 (Mac OS X) MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Disposition: inline Cc: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Subject: Re: "Unprintable" 8-bit characters X-BeenThere: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list Reply-To: FreeBSD Questions List-Id: User questions List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Wed, 09 Nov 2011 02:43:17 -0000 --As of November 8, 2011 7:58:04 PM -0600, Conrad J. Sabatier is alleged to have said: > So, what would be the safest bet as far as the most "universal" > representation for these characters? Something I've long wondered > about when I've e-mailed people and copied/pasted these characters (are > they really seeing what I'm seeing?). :-) --As for the rest, it is mine. These days, the safest bet is UTF-8, or some other Unicode character set, in something that can convey what character set it is in. (Email can, depending on the mail client.) Not that Unicode is universal yet, but it designed to be (and is, generally) a solution to the 'multiple character encodings' problem. (By, of course, defining a new encoding.) It has a decent amount of traction, and in a decade or so - once other options have been firmly depreciated - I'd expect we could start discussing whether to switch ls to using it by default. ;) All this is of course if you *must* go beyond 7-bit ASCII. (Which all forms of Unicode is designed to be a strict superset of.) Daniel T. Staal --------------------------------------------------------------- This email copyright the author. Unless otherwise noted, you are expressly allowed to retransmit, quote, or otherwise use the contents for non-commercial purposes. This copyright will expire 5 years after the author's death, or in 30 years, whichever is longer, unless such a period is in excess of local copyright law. ---------------------------------------------------------------